After the blackout: better, but still room for improvement

William M. Bowen is professor of public administration and urban studies at the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University. He's also associate editor of the International Journal of Energy Technology and Policy.

It is striking that The Plain Dealer's Aug. 14 story on the 10th anniversary of “the blackout” came out only two days after the Department of Energy's latest report on grid resiliency. The difference in messages is also striking. The Plain Dealer's message was basically that the electric power network is more reliable today than it was in 2003. The DOE report's message was basically that the state of the grid puts the entire network at serious risk.While the improvements reported in The Plain Dealer are worth celebrating, the risks described by the DOE also are worthy of serious consideration.According to the DOE report, about 679 power outages occurred nationwide between 2003 and 2012, primarily because of severe weather. Evidently, in 2012, power outages that affected 50,000 or more people in the United States occurred 65 times. In 2011, there were 109 such outages. Ohio had 91 power outages last year, 52 in 2011 and 38 in 2010.

Power outages can be hugely costly to businesses. They are therefore inextricably linked with economic development. At the national level they cost an estimated $25 billion to $70 billion annually in lost output and wages, spoiled inventory, delayed production, and the like. They also disrupt the lives of millions of people, creating inconvenience and at times downright hardship. It is a really good thing that improvements to the grid in Northeast Ohio have made it more reliable today than it was 10 years ago. But at the same time, other and more fundamental improvements also need to be made to ensure that the region's businesses continue to get the reliable, available and low cost power they want and need to compete in the long run.The fact remains that the grid in Northeast Ohio is notoriously old and dilapidated. It requires inordinately large investments in maintenance. And it is based disproportionately upon increasingly outmoded and costly large-scale coal-powered electric plants.While the state of the power network in Northeast Ohio is for these reasons already deeply problematical, and while in the absence of fundamental improvement it is likely to worsen, it also provides the region with a sparkling opportunity to take a leadership role in finding new ways to deliver low-cost, reliable power to regional firms.Disastrous weather is the primary cause of the grid outages described in the DOE report. Climate change is generally expected to exacerbate disastrous weather conditions. Thus, one of the main points in the report is that climate change will make outage problems more acute and costly. I would think that the DOE report would lead any rational person interested in energy and long-term economic development in Northeast Ohio to raise questions about how to plan for and strategically position the region's power network so as to better adapt to climate change.

Part, but not all, of the responsibility for this would appropriately belong to the utilities, and part — but again, not all — to the regulating bodies. One might also suppose that state-level as well as regional-level public policy makers would do some strategic planning around the subject of energy policy and economic development.Of course, as one commentator recently noted, in reality doing strategic planning is like eating broccoli. Everyone agrees that it makes perfect rational sense to do it, but it is nevertheless very seldom done. At the same time, as electricity and economic development are inextricably linked, it makes good sense to consciously coordinate and orchestrate related policies together. I also think it makes sense for government offices to be reorganized and restructured in such a way as to make it possible to do this. Government officials tasked with making related policy decisions should actively and routinely participate in discussions with planners, researchers and public policy analysts who study these matters in think-tanks such as the Energy Policy Center at Cleveland State University.Anything that makes electricity available, reliable and affordable, while at the same time helping us to wean ourselves from large-scale coal-powered electric plants and the grid, will in my view help to adapt and fortify our region's long-term industrial future. It is joyous to read that the power network is more reliable today than it was in 2003. But at the same time, let nobody for a moment believe that as a result of the improvements everything is altogether peachy with the electric system in Northeast Ohio.Whenever outages occur, the power network fails. If the DOE report is at all accurate, we can expect climate change over time to increase the costs of these failures. One of the many challenges this raises is that whenever the power network fails, so do the businesses upon which we all depend.

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